I'm really enjoying the more recent fad of PS2 games getting re-released on the PS3 with an HD makeover and trophies. All of the existing collections are for games I'd either never beaten or never played -- God of War, Tomb Raider, and Sly Cooper are the only existing collections I'm aware of. It's come to my attention recently that collections will also be coming out soon for Metal Gear Solid, Silent Hill, and Splinter Cell. Those three I'd want to pick up for the nostalgia of having played them before on top of having a reason to play them again for trophies.
I owned God of War before, but that was quite a while ago. I'd also never beaten it. Not really sure why I picked up the collection, but this is the only HD collection I currently own. It's not a style of game I usually take much enjoyment out of -- the Devil May Cry style that's 3rd person and could almost be classified as a pseudo fighting game, what with the combo lists required to pull off special moves. I did just get done beating the first game this weekend. For good. With the Platinum trophy, it's safe to say I'll probably never want to touch it again.
You can't go wrong with a storyline based on Greek mythology in my book, and most of the trophies weren't too bad. I would have said all of the trophies were relatively straightforward and easy. Until I tried to go for my last gold trophy, titled "I'll Take the Physical Challenge."
After you beat the game, you can do this little thing called "Challenge of the Gods." It's 10 different challenges that all need to be completed in one sitting to finish. If you enter this game mode from the menu, you'll always start at the first challenge. If you get to a higher challenge and fail, you can start over from that challenge, but returning to the main menu would mean having to start over from 1 again. A lot of the challenges focus on killing or destroying all things within a time limit. Others are just "destroy all things". This is fine for the most part, and with enough tries all of them are doable. The frustrating challenges were 8 and 10.
For challenge 8, falling under the "defeat all enemies with no time limit" category, the only enemies were normal skeleton soldiers (whatever they're actually called) and gorgons. Lots of gorgons. The problem with gorgons is their gaze attack, which you don't have to be facing them for it to work. I redid that challenge so many times from being turned to stone and immediately being shattered before I could break out. Rage.
The last challenge was maybe 2 to 3 minutes long from start to finish. That being said, it took me maybe 2 to 3 hours to finish. You were given a tiny platform to defeat enemies, and each enemy defeated would raise the platform. Your goal was to get high enough to reach another platform. The only enemies were mini Cerberus puppies and Satyr. The puppies always do this attack where they lunge forward, and hitting you acts as a mini explosion, knocking you back. All of the Satyr's attacks either knock you back or throw you around. Basically, you only have to get hit once or twice by any enemy to fall off the platform, which is mostly instant death. Right when I started, I was reading online about strategies, and everyone agreed on one strategy. It's the same strategy I kept using, and it really was the only effective way to have a chance of advancement. Just spamming the same move over and over until you eventually get to the platform to the top... My luck must have been bad.
I have a lot of footage to go through, but early on in the challenge I decided to start up some video capture. I plan on making a montage video of a lot of the cheap deaths. There's not many games that can frustrate me enough to have me yelling "wtf!?" and other such obscenities, but this was definitely one of them.
I still have God of War 2 to play through and platinum before I can shelve the collection as complete, but the internet tells me it's easier than the first. Here's hoping...
